Review | Current Swell @ Great Scott
Photos: Matt LeBel
Last night, Victoria’s Current Swell made their first visit to Boston with a show at Great Scott. It was also evidently the first show some of the crowd had ever been to (“Guys, I want to take a picture of this place, it’s so cool-looking!”) but that’s ok, I remember my first show. But pro tip, young fans, if you love the band and you see they have beers on stage, you can go to the bar and buy them further beers. That’s right! You can actually buy stage beers for your musical heroes. I suspect they would be pretty pleased about it.
Now that my PSA as an old lady of going to shows is out of the way, into the show itself!
Opening up was Will Evans, formerly of Barefoot Truth. Here’s a solo artist who makes you think he’s a whole band, what with his deft work with a delay pedal. But what really caught my eye about him was those songs of his that were instrumental, since those showcased his straight-up guitar skills. And – all right, listen. It’s that time of year; the US Air Guitar season has just started, and I’m going to be kind of a one-note flute for the next few months. I wrote my notes for this show on the back of a flyer for last year’s qualifier, for god’s sake. So I am extra mesmerized by talented guitar players at the moment.
Current Swell’s versatility was the big story for me. You might recall “Rollin” as being a slide-heavy rocker. They have some songs like that (those ones are my favourites, and I spelled that word right because of CANADA). They have folkier numbers as well, music to sit on the beach with your friends to, and plenty in between. Also, it might be relevant to your interests that guitarist/harmonica-er (it’s a word, get out of my face) Dave Lang has a wood-panelled guitar. His guitar is your parents’ basement rec room from 1970. If he wore a suit made out of shag carpeting, I’d basically have died and gone to heaven.
But somehow they had, in all their travels, never brought their show here. Well, with the reception they got from their Boston faithful last night, I wouldn’t be surprised if they visit us a lot more often. And when they do, maybe you’ll be in the audience too. Remember… stage beers.
Current Swell website / Facebook / Twitter
